"If you think it, father, why not say it? Surely the day has gone by for the old foolish ideas. The government has left the people to starve, and must take the consequences. We have done our best, but we are not policemen. I feel tempted to go back to Hampstead and having nothing more to do with it. Think of the ingratitude, the shame of it all—and we have worked so hard!"
"You should not have listened to Mr. Faber, my dear; I said as much at the beginning. He is very ignorant of English people; it was a mistake to listen to him."
"You didn't think that on the steamer, father, when we came over from America. You were his bravest advocate; you called him one of the world's geniuses, I remember it."
Silvester admitted it.
"I hoped much from him. If we could have won him, it would have been the greatest victory in the cause of peace we have ever achieved. I fear now he must be called our evil genius. He has undoubtedly sold all those rifles to Germany, and that is to say that we shall have the old foolish scares again and very soon. A man like that is a terrible instrument of mischief. I think we shall have to dissociate ourselves from him altogether when the little girl is well enough to leave us."
Gabrielle sighed as though all these things had become a burden on her mind. An innate sympathy for John Faber prevented her saying what otherwise it would have been a truth to say. How much he could have done for them had he chosen to do it! His money would have helped them so—an inconsequent thought, for her charities had never wanted money.
"He was certainly wrong about the tickets," she admitted. "I know Mr. Trevelle thought so, but he gave way. If it is really true that he is keeping bread from the people to serve his own ends, nothing bad enough can be said about it, but I want to know that it is true. It has been very unkind of him to do nothing for us when he might have done so much. My opinion of him is greatly changed; I do not think he is really our friend."
Silvester was quite of that opinion also.
"He made us such extravagant promises. A house in the West End, motors—every luxury. I really thought he was quite serious when I left Ragusa. Sir Jules Achon did not wish us to go. He knows these people; he thought I was ill-advised to give up Yonkers for such vague promises. I wish I had listened to him now; he is still on those delightful waters, far away from all this. We should have been with him but for our foolish generosity."
Gabrielle avoided the difficult subject. She must have been a little ashamed of it when she remembered the gifts John Faber had lavished upon them already and the concern he displayed for Maryska. The conversation, indeed, carried her back to a somewhat commonplace reality from which she had emerged to win this temporary triumph as a ministering angel in the East End. And now they had burned her Temple and the idol was cast down. Her father would send Maryska away, and they must return to the old humdrum life. John Faber and his riches would pass as a ship of the night. Harry Lassett and the dead leaves of a withered passion remained.